Maison Margiela Launches Home Line

MILAN — Maison Martin Margiela on Tuesday showcased its new furniture prototypes and home objects at the international furniture and design exhibition Salone del Mobile here.

Wallpaper, bookshelves, lamps and carpets were some of the new items on display in the showroom, which reproduced the company’s interior design workshop in Paris.

“Margiela has always produced objects to complement the stores, but it used to be more about style than business,” said the brand’s chief executive officer Giovanni Pungetti. “We thought the Salone would be a good opportunity to introduce the new direction in which the Maison is expanding.”

The project is still a work-in-progress and will likely range from the design of objects and furniture in a self-produced collection or in the development of one-off partnerships, according to Pungetti. The company will also do commissions for individuals or public interior design and architecture.

“There are no limits,” said the executive, also pointing to collaborations with hotels and restaurants. “This installation is a visual stimulus, from fashion to lifestyle and atmosphere.”

Black-and-white trompe l’oeil wallpaper and wool rugs reproducing ceilings, floors, doors or mirrors in Margiela’s Paris headquarters will be put into production and carried in the brand’s stores or showrooms next year. In the Belgian designer’s iconic tongue-in-cheek style, white and — making a glaring exception to the all-white Margiela style — black or dark green recycled bottles become lamps; a chair is turned into a swing, and a calendar is made of crisp white cotton sheets, which can be recycled as napkins.